Mommin' It Up!

February 9, 2010

Giving Pride the Finger

I do not believe it is a coincidence that the subject of pride has come up for discussion several times for me lately, with several different people, in several different environments. It’s not coincidence, because it’s something I need to think about, and work on. It is something I am sure, that God has been speaking to me about.

I believe that pride is the number one thing that keeps us from forming true relationships with each other. And by “us”, I mean women, although I think it applies to all genders, races, and creeds. Pride is the shiny veneer over a scratched dining table, the thickly-applied concealer over a blemish, the cleverly-placed accessory that covers an ugly scar.

And it’s the Berlin Wall that forms between what could be beautiful relationships. Its size is a wonder, its strength, its mass seemingly impenetrable. It is closely and vigilantly guarded.

It needs to come down.

As I mentioned before, at BlissDom I told Lotus how much her blogging about her depression had meant to me. Her courage to admit her struggles, her realness, her acknowledgment that sometimes she is not okay, gave me the strength to write about my own battle.

How much could we help each other, if we would only ask for help for ourselves? Maybe you call a friend and just ask her to listen as you vent about your frustrations as a mom. And she learns that it is okay to have those frustrations. To admit them. To know she is not alone. Maybe you confess that you have doubts about faith, marital problems, feelings of worthlessness, fears, financial problems, worries that you are screwing up your kids. Maybe you just say, “I need you to take the kids for a couple hours.” Maybe you do this, you give someone the opportunity to help you, to listen to you, to love you as you truly are, and not for how you have been presenting yourself, and you change a life. Maybe two lives. Maybe you blog about it and you change dozens.

Maybe you win yourself one true, intimate friendship. Maybe you become the answer to someone’s prayer.

Maybe you take a sledgehammer to the Berlin Wall. Make a hole big enough for someone else to escape through, to find freedom.

Maybe you find it yourself. Only one way to find out.

February 8, 2010

Girlfriends are the New Black

I have been trying to post something about BlissDom for over an hour. And apparently, I’m not quite ready to put it into words yet! It was fun, amazing, sweet, wonderful, and so much more. The best part was just spending time with lady bloggers that I LOVE. So courtesy of Flickr’s Valentine’s Day effects, here are some photos of the weekend. A more profound recap is coming soon, I promise!

Cousin love! Emily and me all dressed up for the Thursday night cocktail party.

Cortney, Emily, and me in line to see Harry Connick, Jr. who performed for us. The weekend with these two was a bed of roses! Seriously spending time with them in the car and in our room was one of the highlights of the weekend for sure.

One of 2009’s gifts to me, the beautiful, funny, talented Katie of Domestic Debacle.

The lovely Lotus. I made her cry because I blubbered everywhere and told her that because I’d read her blogs about depression, I knew I could write about mine. I *love* her. And she’s HYSTERICAL!

Susan and Shannan make me want to dance, dance, dance! These two Cincy girls are awwwweeesome!

This photo of Andrea (who I have nicknamed SassySnacks after this weekend!) and Emily makes my heart go pitter-patter. So much love!

More to come this week. Thanks so much again to INTEL for sponsoring our attendance at BlissDom! If you haven’t already, go ENTER our contest to win an mbook pocket PC powered by the Intel Atom processor.

For more BlissDom photos, check out my Flickr phototream.

February 3, 2010February 9, 2010

Big News & a Giant Giveaway

*Comments are now closed! Winner will be announced tomorrow!*

So, as I mentioned Monday, it’s BLISSDOM week! Emily and I are leaving for this fab lady-blogger conference tomorrow morning and we can’t wait to hang with our bloggy friends in Nashvegas. But what we didn’t tell you yet is that we have a super-awesome sponsor that is sending us to the conference…none other than Intel! Chances are that the computer you’re using as you read this is powered by an Intel processor – it’s technology we all use every day and Emily & I are thrilled and proud to represent this great brand!

Since we are representing Intel at BlissDom, they figured they’d also send us with some cool products to show the power of Intel technology! So we will be taking two amazing Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) with us the mbook and the Viliv S7. These are small but fully-functional PC’s with wi-fi, web cams, and everything else you could want in a computer! They are smaller than netbooks, even. To give you an idea of size, here’s the mbook in the palm of my hand:

mbook

And the ViLiv S7 next to a pop can (seriously, Emily, is that DIET Mountain Dew?? EEEWW! Why defile such a wonderful soda by removing its sugar!?)

viliv copy

These machines are amazing! They both have touch screens (the screen on the ViLiv even swivels and pivots to become a tablet!) They also both have huge battery lives – 4 hours for the tiny mbook and 9 hours for the ViLiv – wow! I don’t think Emily and I will need to worry about plugging in at BlissDom! They both have fully-functional keyboards, and the mbook uses a stylus for its touchscreen. The ViLiv S7 features a touchpad mouse – or you can just use your fingers on the touchscreen. They also can be used with the Kindle for PC software – so you can download Kindle books on them and use them like a Kindle! HOLLA!

So here’s the REALLY exciting part! Thanks to Intel, we are giving away a UMID mbook featuring the Intel Atom Processor to one lucky reader! It’s the world’s smallest PC and it can be yours!

Umid mbook

Here’s how to enter (several ways):

1) Leave us a comment on this post telling us what feature you like best about the mbook.
2) Tweet about this giveaway on Twitter. Make sure to follow and include @intelnews in your tweet! Then leave us a separate comment with your tweet URL.
3) Hit the facebook button at the bottom of this post to share this post on facebook, then leave us a separate comment letting us know you did so.
4) Subscribe to our feed and leave us a separate comment letting us know you did or already do.

ONE winner will be chosen by random.org on Monday, February 8th. Good luck and thanks so much to Intel for this great giveaway and for sending us to BlissDom!